‘So apart from listening to Justin, what did you do today?’ he grinned, steering me to the side of the stage to a quiet corner and a better view. ‘This writing gig sounds really cool.’
‘Apart from listen to Justin? God, that takes up so much of my time,’ I said trying not to listen to the people whispering around us, not so subtly. ‘But yeah, the writing thing is really cool, I hope. It’s just an online diary, a blog, but, oh, I don’t want to jinx it. I’ve never really had anything published as myself before, so it’s a big thing to me even though it’s probably not really.’
‘Sounds like a good break though,’ he said and raised his glass. ‘You going to write about our date?’
‘I suppose I’ll have to,’ I said, not having really thought about it. ‘Purely in the interests of journalistic integrity, of course. Totally anonymous though. I will protect your innocence.’
He leaned in towards me again, pushing me back against the wall, and kissed me hard. As his lips pressed down on mine, any concerns about protecting his innocence dissipated, my body caught between the sticky, cold wall and Alex’s taut frame. It was all I could do not to drop my beer.
‘If you’re going to write about me, you should know,’ he breathed as we pulled apart, ‘I take bad reviews very personally.’
‘Shouldn’t be a problem,’ I chirped, not really knowing where to put myself. Feeling his warm, chocolaty breath so close to my ear was making me shiver and I closed my eyes to commit the kiss properly to memory. Stumbling backwards into the wall, his soft lips, the way his body felt pressed against the thin material of my dress. Before I could completely relive it, I felt Alex close behind me again, his arm draped around my waist, hand resting on my hip. I let myself lean against him, dropping my head backwards onto his chest. It felt so nice, so easy.
We stood in comfortable silence until Alex had to excuse himself to the bathroom and bar, just before the main act. I watched him wander off downstairs, letting myself check him out shamelessly, with a huge smile on my face. It was weird, I was having so much fun, but Alex made me so nervous, as in major butterflies. Tyler didn’t make me nervous at all, everything he said and did was designed to make me comfortable. I sort of understood him, bank job, smart suits and all, but I’d felt more awkward about getting dressed up and being in a smart restaurant. It was everything I could do not to spill gravy down my dress. And cream. And coffee.
‘You’re here with Alex?’ In front of me was a petite, pretty girl, head to toe in skintight black with a Debbie Harry platinum bob.
‘Erm, yes?’ I replied. She didn’t look as if she’d come over to make friends.
‘You should know, he’s a complete asshole,’ she said casually. ‘He’s screwed just about every girl in here. Maybe even some of the guys.’
‘Oh, well, we’ve only just met,’ I said, not really sure what to do with the information she was just throwing away and not really wanting to get into a conversation with her. ‘I wasn’t really planning that far ahead.’
‘Yeah, whatever.’ She looked me up and down and sipped her drink. ‘I’m just telling you what everyone here already knows.’ I spotted Alex looking over from the bar and he didn’t look happy. ‘So, you know, if I were you, I’d be careful if you do “plan that far ahead”. Whatever.’ She turned on her heel and vanished into the crowd.
‘Hey,’ Alex said, returning with my drink and a dark expression. ‘Did she just say something to you?’
‘Er, yes,’ I said. What should I tell him? Why would she say that? But right at that moment, I didn’t want to believe a word.
‘Oh.’ He looked into the crowd for the blonde girl. ‘Do you know her?’
‘No, but, well, seemed like she knew you,’ I replied. She had completely vanished.
‘I used to date one of her friends for ever ago, is all,’ he said, resuming his position behind me. ‘Wasn’t a great break-up.’
‘I can more or less see any bad break-up and raise you,’ I said, skimming the subject. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Bitter friend of the ex, made perfect sense. I just wished I could believe Louisa was making up bitchy lies about Mark, but she was probably swapping cupcake recipes with ‘Katie’ by now. Alex replied with a gentle kiss on my neck and I let myself relax into him and the music as the main band took to the stage.
‘They were so good,’ I said as we emptied out onto the street at midnight. I loved the post-good-gig-buzz. ‘Just, wow, really good!’
Alex laughed and took my hand. ‘You want to go get a drink or something?’
I looked at my watch and pulled a face. It was already after twelve and even though I was having a great time, a tiny part of my mind kept reminding me that I was seeing Tyler on Sunday evening and I really didn’t want to show up looking like complete crap. But the look on Alex’s face and the way he was squeezing my hand made it a really difficult decision. Well, the look on his face, the hand-holding, and the four beers I’d already had on nothing but Ring Dings for dinner. Any more to drink and I didn’t know if I’d be able to make my best judgements.
‘I should really think about getting back,’ I said, not really believing the words coming out of my mouth. ‘I told my roommate I’d be back and…’ He gave me the same puppy dog look I’d seen him work on the waitress at Manatus.
‘Just one drink?’ I said, allowing myself to be pulled down the street.
Really, just one.
Three drinks later, we were nestled in a tiny dive bar with a fantastic jukebox and cold, fizzy beer. We talked about music, about gigs we’d been to, about gigs we’d missed, argued about our favourite albums and dreamed up our ideal festival line up, him headlining, of course. Soon three drinks turned into four, and just after twelve turned into almost two before I remembered I was supposed to be home by now. I was drunk enough to have to watch my step on the way to the toilet, but sober enough to recognize that I was well on my way to wasted. Thank God for weak American lager. Checking the gig damage to my make-up in the mirror, I figured I still looked OK and managed not to apply any more make-up (so I couldn’t have been as drunk as I thought), but slicked on several layers of lip balm. Alex’s kisses were getting more aggressive with each swoop and I was starting to feel a little bit tender. And more than a little bit turned on. I traced my lips with the tip of my index finger, this was so strange. Tyler’s kisses had been firm and gentle, whereas Alex wasn’t backwards about coming forwards. The old me would have freaked out at any kind of public display of affection, but the new me seemed to be pretty OK with it. And with dating two men. And with hanging around in nasty toilets for more than the necessary amount of time. Ew. I really had to get home, my head was starting to teeter between ‘go home with him’ and ‘go home and vomit’ and in those cases, there was only ever going to be one winner.
Heading back out to the bar, I saw Alex talking to a couple of girls, laughing easily and giving them the same soft smiles and intense eyes that had made me feel like the only girl in New York. It was definitely time to go. ‘I should probably make a move,’ I said loudly. The girls looked at each other, smiled gleefully at Alex and dropped onto my empty seat, one on top of the other.
‘Sure, let’s go,’ Alex said, standing up and putting his arm around my shoulders. I smiled a tiny smile to myself, head down, and let Alex guide me out of the bar, leaving the girls sulking in my seat.
‘Murray Hill?’ he asked, as we jumped into an empty yellow taxi before one of the other dozens of couples with their arms in the air could take it.
‘39th and Lexington,’ I said to the driver, sitting back against the cracked seats. Alex didn’t give me a chance to wonder if he would make a move, wait for a sign or even for the cab to pull into traffic before he stretched his long, lean body right across the backseat and took my face in both of his hands. As the taxi bolted through the late-night streets of New York City, I was thrown into a half-sitting, half-lying position on the back seat. Even though the night wasn’t cold, there was a chill that was co
mpletely dispelled by the warmth of Alex’s body as he pushed himself against me. I could feel his hand travel down my side and on to bare flesh at the top of my thigh where my dress had ridden up, and although I knew things were moving altogether too fast, I didn’t want to stop him. Before I had to make a really difficult decision, the taxi pulled to a juddering halt, throwing us both into the foot well. I giggled nervously, straddling him and trying to work out how to get up, off and out without giving everything away.
‘Do you want to come in?’
The words were out of my mouth before I even thought about them. So this is what women are talking about when we complain that men let their penises make all their decisions for them.
‘I really want to come in,’ he said, helping me push myself back into a sitting position, ‘but I’m not going to.’
I looked at him, surprised. Not that I thought I was such a prize catch who would never get blown out, but that I just really felt that was where this was going. And when we were kissing, I’d felt something else that biologically suggested that he thought the same.
‘If I come in now,’ he whispered, leaning across and opening my door, ‘what’s left to guess?’
I smiled shyly. I could hardly pass for coy, but I hadn’t expected him to be such a romantic.
‘Can you wait a sec while I see the lady to the door?’ he asked the cabbie, who grunted something along the lines of an agreement.
Alex pushed my hair behind my ear, holding my gaze just a moment more than he needed to. ‘I had a really good time, Angela,’ he said, giving me one of his gentlest kisses. ‘Will you call me?’
I nodded, having completely lost the ability to speak, and watched him get back in the cab. Malicious bleached blonde aside, I thought the evening had gone fairly well.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I was on my third Starbucks venti wet latte on Sunday morning before I was prepared to accept that writing a blog wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d hoped. I stared at the blank white screen waiting for inspiration. I knew Mary wanted the intro and three diary pieces and I knew it would make sense to do Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Mary had been quite insistent on the dating theme, and that would cover my first dates with Tyler and Alex. But I didn’t know how to talk about the dates without a) sounding like a total tart, and b) sounding like I was gossiping about two different guys with the whole city. Wasn’t that rude? Should I blog about Tyler and Alex without their permission? Was I genuinely sitting in Starbucks in New York all hopped up on caffeine asking myself ridiculous questions? I necked the dregs of my coffee and started typing. Instead of worrying about what other people would think, I tried to think about what I would want to read. So I started out writing about something easy. Something I loved.
My lovely, lovely Marc Jacobs handbag.
The Adventures of Angela: How a handbag healed a broken heart
I gave it a loving look and a gentle pat, nothing potentially damaging though, obviously. I still couldn’t quite believe I’d spent half a mortgage payment on a bag. On some bits of leather and metal, stitched together to hold my stuff. Stitched together by angels…Why had I never bought something so fabulous before? Probably because I didn’t think I deserved it. Probably like I didn’t think I deserved to be dating gorgeous guys like Tyler and Alex. Probably like I thought I didn’t think I deserved the blogging job. Probably like I didn’t need another coffee. Oh, wait, that I didn’t need, but it was what I had. Like the bag. Sod it. I started typing and went for it. All the details. It was almost fun, the Angela in my diary was living such a great life and without any of the pesky concerns that plagued the real Angela. Once I’d finished, I went through and deleted anything that would upset my mother. Then I put it back in. No more coffee for me.
With the diary pieces in place, I went back to the introduction. I had to front my break-up while I was on a roll, Mary was expecting it, but even as highly caffeinated as I was, this was much trickier than writing about dating. All my life I’d been someone’s something, Annette’s daughter, Louisa’s friend, Mark’s girlfriend, but who was I now? I had run away from being Mark’s ex, the bridesmaid who ruined the wedding, the girl who lived with her mum. For the last week, with Jenny, Erin, Vanessa, I’d been the slightly crazy girl with the bad/heroic break-up. With Tyler I’d been the quirky English girl who liked to break men’s hands, and with Alex, I’d managed to barter my way down to just a slightly quirky English girl. With any luck, I’d be able to have someone describe me as ‘just some girl I met, I think she’s British’ by the end of the month.
I decided there was only one thing to do. Be completely and brutally honest. I opened up the diary I’d written back in The Union and re-read it. It was all there, finding Mark in the car park, yelling at Louisa, bashing Tim with my shoe, right through to pissing in Mark’s toiletry bag. This was the version for Mary. Maybe not the weeing in the toiletry bag. I apple-X-ed the incident, but still sat there with a little smile, imagining the look on his face the next time he went to use his badger hair shaving brush. Yes Mark, it does smell a bit funny.
Despite Jenny’s insistence that it was absolutely fine to date two men at once (and blog about it), it still felt a bit weird going out with Tyler less than twenty-four hours after seeing Alex. I’d even wondered what the protocol would be on suggesting Jenny dated him instead, he was just her type, but when I opened the apartment door and saw him standing there, head to toe in black Armani, I reconsidered.
‘Hi,’ I said, accepting his kiss on the cheek and feeling distinctly underdressed in a little Splendid T-shirt dress and Havaianas. ‘Erm, you did say cinema, didn’t you?’
‘I did,’ he said, nodding towards a cab across the street with its engine running. ‘But then I thought, you’ve only been in the city for a week, and I’d really be doing New York a disservice if I took you to a multiplex to see some Cameron Diaz movie, so I had a rethink. I hope you don’t mind?’
‘Not at all,’ I said, getting into the waiting yellow car. ‘I just, am I dressed OK?’
Seriously. Black Armani suit, white shirt open at the neck, and there was not even a hair out of place.
‘You’re dressed just fine,’ he said, sliding his arm around my shoulder. ‘You’ll love it, I promise.’
I shrugged and smiled. So far, so good. A little surprise like a change of venue couldn’t hurt.
A few tense horn-honking minutes later, we pulled up outside a theatre.
‘It’s kind of like going to the movies,’ Tyler said, opening the door and letting me out. It was nothing like going to the movies. It was absolutely like going to a Broadway show. I was so excited. ‘I managed to score some tickets to Wicked from a guy at work. It’s supposed to be really good, have you seen it?’
I shook my head. ‘That’s amazing! I wanted to see this in London but never made it. Musicals are my guilty pleasure.’
‘Well, you said you liked music,’ he said, leading me through the lobby like a pro. It was an interesting interpretation of my liking music but I wasn’t complaining. What a thoughtful, nice man. And with his arm around my waist, guiding me into my third-row seat, I was reminded that the nice man attended the gym very regularly. ‘So, have you broken any hands since I last saw you?’
I shook my head, starting to regret having told him any details of my break-up. The Rules were rules for a reason, I understood that now. ‘Nope, I did get a job though,’ I offered, filling him in. This time, I did hold back a little on the detail. I just didn’t feel as if he’d necessarily be ecstatic about being the star of an online search for love.
‘Well, that’s great!’ he said, kissing me quickly and unexpectedly. ‘This is a celebration then. You should have told me.’
‘It’s nothing huge,’ I said, blushing. He thought I should have told him. Ahh. ‘Just an online thing, it won’t go in the magazine at all.’
‘Don’t talk it down,’ he admonished, taking my hand in his as the lights flashed twice. ‘You said you wanted to be
a proper writer and now you are.’ He looked across at me. ‘You’re a real inspiration, you know? One week in the city and see what you’ve achieved. I really hope some of this luck is going to rub off on me.’ He really did know just what to say to make me feel amazing. The orchestra struck up as he leaned across the velvet-covered armrest and kissed me deeply.
‘I suppose that might help the luck rub off quicker,’ I said, pressing my lips together after the endless kiss.
‘I’m prepared to keep trying until it does,’ Tyler whispered while the actors took the stage.
I sank back in my seat and grinned in the dark. At least I was going to have something to write about in my diary tonight.
The rest of the evening was so special. I was completely carried away with the romance of the show, squeezing Tyler’s hand, resting my head on his shoulder, burying my face in his jacket during the sad bits. Afterwards, we wandered down to a tiny candlelit restaurant around the corner. In no time at all, I’d turned into a purring kitten, all coquettish giggles and bicep stroking. God, if Mark had known musicals had this effect on me, he might have taken me to more.
‘You really are remarkable,’ Tyler said, spoonfeeding me ice cream. Usually that kind of couplish behaviour made me want to vom, but with Tyler, it just seemed sweet and loving. ‘I can’t believe you’ve managed all this in a week. I guess I’m just not a risk taker like you.’
‘It’s so weird being described by someone else,’ I said, offering a spoonful of cheesecake in return for the ice cream. ‘The one risky thing I’ve ever done is come to New York, but that is working out fairly well. Maybe I ought to look into this risk taking thing more.’
‘I think that sounds like a wonderful idea,’ Tyler said. ‘I’ve always had my life so mapped out. Ivy league college, good job with a great bank, next is supposed to be wife and kids, move to Connecticut, retire to Florida.’